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FRONT PAGE - Back to THE ADVISOR PAGE GameMaster,
The poker is terrible: Deuces with quads at 4 AND cuts in 4dueces and Royal, 8/5 Jacks with a flat 200 on Royal and 20 on quads. Bonus poker has similarly short pay schedules, too. But I think there is one exception, a game called Lucky Clover Poker.
What do you think of this pay schedule? After the races, I found this game and sat down to play while I waited for my wife. Within 5 minutes I hit the aces, so I am naturally inclined to play this game again. But I am not sure whether the odds are good enough.
Any advice on this game? Hi, Frank
You have a "1" as the payout for Jacks+ and Two-Pair, but I assume you mean that it pays 5 for 5. If that's the case, this game returns only 91.75%, longterm. My advice is to not play it.
Yours for winning, GameMaster,
Also, they do NOT pay initial deposit bonuses of any kind, at least I never
got one. My ratings are, unfortunately, based only upon the potential of winning if
the game is honest. Even if I did play the games for 'real' money, it's
not likely that I could play each casino enough to conclude that they are
offering a fair game. Until such time as there is some indisputable
regulation of the online casinos, I'm afraid that experiences like yours
may be commonplace. That said, it doesn't necessarily mean they are
cheating, since there are other reasons why your experienced ended as it
did. In addition, the casino was recommended to me by quite a few
different readers who had good experiences there. Obviously, we cannot
base a casino's rating upon whether someone wins or loses, but we can try
to get a sense of its legitimacy by heeding and publishing the comments of
those who have played there. Your input is very valuable and much
appreciated. Regarding bonuses, they come and go, so the casino's web site has to always
be the final information source on that, but I will change my review if
they're no longer offered. My list is an attempt by one person to make some sense out of all this
Internet gambling business and I don't think it's "good", but I do know
it's honest, because we, unlike most other sites, aren't compensated by the
losses of players. I like to think that the reviews we offer are a
reasonable guide within the parameters we try to emphasize: They are based
only upon the rules and implied odds of the games of the casino since it's
virtually impossible to declare with 100% certainty that any operation is
honest.
Yours for winning, Hi:
I certainly hope that is the case, because it is fun to see that sometimes you would have lost with that nasty face card, anyway. Hello, Jeanne.
Any legitimate game is going to have the cards dealt from the same deck (or decks, if a multi-deck game), so the answer would be "yes", the card you don't take will be the card the dealer gets.
Yours for winning, GameMaster,
I used to use the Uston APC and I now use Halves because its easier and I
thought that there wasn't enough significant difference since I believed
that it was an error. Thank you for your help.
Hi, Chase.
But, the Halves count is also much easier to use for long periods of time,
so depending upon the type of game you play, you're probably better off
where you are right now. If I had to bet, I'd say that a 57% P.E. for the
Halves count is correct.
Yours for winning, GameMaster, I have two more questions for you:
1. What is the edge for single and multideck games with continuous
shuffle? I
noticed a few games like that at Monte Carlo in Vegas. Also, there a some $5
tables at Cherokee Harrahs, which is close to me. I looked at your
"Evaluating Games" and could not find a way to figure it out. The rules are
DAS, DOA, re-split everything except aces, dealer stands on all 17's, no
surrender.
Continuous shufflers do not affect the casino's edge over the player who
uses proper Basic Strategy. Where they hurt is when a player is counting
cards, because it's essentially like shuffling after every hand.
2. I played in West Palm Beach (on a boat) that offered surrender. I early-
surrendered several times. I think the dealer did not know the difference
between early and late surrender. Another dealer took over and he would not
let me early surrender. I asked the pit boss and he said that the house rule
was late surrender but since the previous dealer allowed early that he would
let me early-surrender. I guess my question is what is the norm on something
like this? Can they change the rules at a table once they start playing? I
noticed this lack of knowledge about surrender at several casinos in Vegas
also. When I surrendered (like you taught me) they looked at me like I had
the plague.
Your thoughts would be appreciated. The casino can, in most jurisdictions, change the rules at anytime except
in the middle of a hand. Oftentimes, they will "grandfather" someone like
they did for you, but that's about all you can expect. As for dealers and
other players looking at you like you're crazy when you surrender, I run
into that all the time. A lot of people think you should "fight out" the
hand, but they're wrong, if you can surrender those hands which, on
average, will cost you more than 50% of your bet to play out. Keep
surrendering when it's appropriate, because it's in your favor.
Yours for winning, |